ONOABHAGBE AND OTHERS v. DENMARK

Published on 20 October 2025

FOURTH SECTION

Application no. 28417/25
Solomon ONOABHAGBE and Others
against Denmark
lodged on 5 September 2025
communicated on 2 October 2025

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The application concerns the refusal by the Danish authorities to grant the applicants a residence permit.

The applicants are a father and his four children, all Nigerian nationals.

On 10 May 2010 the applicant father was granted a temporary residence permit to work in Denmark.

He and his wife entered the country in April 2011.

Their oldest child, G, was born in Denmark on 14 September 2011. He was granted a temporary residence permit on 29 October 2013.

The spouses had three more children.

The family’s residence permits were prolonged several times, most recently until 1 July 2018.

Subsequently, the family requested a residence permit on the basis of G’s individual ties to Denmark. Their request was refused by the immigration authorities by a final decision of 1 April 2019.

The applicants re-applied for a residence permit in March 2020, when G. was eight and a half years old. The immigration authorities refused their request on 10 February 2021, finding that G. did not have sufficient individual ties to Denmark as required under section 9c(1) of the Aliens Act. In this respect, they concluded, among other things, that although G had lived lawfully in the country since his birth, only the period from 29 October 2013 until 1 July 2018, that is less than five years, could be taken into account when calculating the length of G’s lawful residence permit in Denmark. Moreover, when assessing G’s ties to Denmark, only the “formative years” could be taken into account. In general, those commenced when a child starts in school, approximately at the age of seven.

The applicants brought the case before the courts relying on Article 8 of the Convention.

The family left Denmark on 21 April 2021.

By a final judgment of 7 May 2025, the Supreme Court found against the applicants.

QUESTION TO THE PARTIES

Did the reasons adduced by the immigration authorities to refuse to grant the applicants a residence permit, confirmed by the Supreme Court in its judgment of 7 May 2025, fulfil the fair balance assessment that has to be struck between the competing interests of, on one hand, the individual, including the best interest of the child, and, on the other hand, the community as a whole, as required by Article 8 of the Convention?

APPENDIX

Application no. 28417/25